Tuesday, March 31, 2009

As you well know, Chop Suey Books proudly displays headshots from our favorite stars. As of last week, Amy Sedaris, Ice T, and Ralph Macchio are joined by the cast of Life On Mars. Though Harvey Keitel, Michael Imperioli, Gretchen Moll, Jason O'Mara, and Jonathan Murphy will soon leave 1973 NYC, they will always have a comfortable home at Chop Suey Books. Eternal thanks to these generous actors and our great friend who worked hard to get all these signatures.

Though this will be a hard present to top, we are always accepting signed headshots to display in our store. Just bring them in our send them to 2913 W. Cary Street, Richmond, VA, 23221.

After a great fundraising event at New York Deli and a confusion over who the real "Barry" was, Devorah Barry emerged as the winner of the Books On Wheels bike raffle. Congratulations Devorah, and remember to thank Barry from the Deli for putting air in your tires. And Barry, we're really sorry for the confusion.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

In her unique and inventive book, Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry, Leanne Shapton details Lenore and Harold's 4 year relationship with the flotsam and jetsam left in the wake of their love and subsequent break-up. Published in the form of an auction catalogue, this book offers for sale the couple's personal effects: gifts, shared books, photographs, love notes, postcards, and so on. This clinical categorization of a couple's relationship offers only small details into the private life of Lenore and Harold, but as the auction items amass, so do hints and shadows of the life these two shared. The effect is a mosaic, an incomplete picture of the relationship that is more compelling because of it's omissions. Reading through this auction catalogue, you will accompany the couple on highs and lows, be privy to pet names and biting insults, witness the fevered growth of a new relationship, and gather hints to the root of the couple's undoing while they are still giving each other presents.

Friday, March 13, 2009

The New York Deli is hosting a reading tonight with Shawna Kenney (I Was a Teenage Dominatrix), Cara Bruce (Viscera), and Dito Montiel (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints). And Richmond knows how to lay out the red carpet! I just heard a loud horse neigh outside and looked to see the Club Velvet (local strip club) Hummer (local strip club gadfly) driving by. I remembered that they like to drive around town and beep at girls using animal sounds. Wondering who they were picking out on this rainy day, I looked around to see Shawna standing alone outside of the Deli, trying to talk on her phone. I'm glad that such a warm welcome to RVA could be summed up so succinctly!

Attention readers, drinkers, and double-threats! Chop Suey Books now has Ablutions by Patrick deWitt, a novel about the drinking life that is receiving a lot of praise for its entrancing prose.

Dennis Cooper (Frisk) said: "Something truly fresh, something that gave me a reading experience as shivery and enlivening as I’ve had in a long time."

Luc Sante (Low Life) said: "Ablutions is funny and precarious, a novel that shifts the ground under the reader's feet, a naked-lightbulb self-examination that doesn't shy from high comedy. DeWitt has a gimlet eye and a dead aim with words."

A few months back, our good friend artist/writer Carson Mell prepared a short trailer for Ablutions that's been showing on the internet and is, ahem, THE COOLEST ADVERTISEMENT EVER MADE ON BEHALF OF A BOOK. Check it out below.

Already hailed by the Sunday Times (London) as "one of the outstanding novels of the year," Zoe Heller's newest novel, The Believers, was released to an American audience last week. A follow-up to her acclaimed Notes on a Scandal, this novel again focuses on the frailties of the human character. In particular, as the title suggests, themes of faith and doubt are tested, leaving the novel's characters to question long held beliefs in marriage, family, religion, sobriety, love, morality, and life.

Heller was interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition this morning. If you missed it, you can listen to it here.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Books On Wheels is heading back to New Orleans with thousands of free books and enough spare parts to repair dozens of bikes, but first we need to raise some money. One way we are doing this is raffling off a brand new Diamondback Della Cruz 1.0, a really cool cruiser that is ready to roll. Tickets are only $1, and we will be selling them everyday through March 29th. That night, we will have a fundraiser at New York Deli, at the end of which we will draw the winning ticket. This is a $275 bike, but could be yours for only $1. Or $10. Or $50. It just depends on how you want to play the odds. The important thing is that every dollar will go towards our trip to New Orleans. If you want to know why this trip is so important, you can talk with Shelley or Ward at the NY Deli fundraiser, or just read Books On Wheels' blog entries for March 2008 detailing the specifics of last year's trip.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Sorry it's late, but here's my last entry. Let's see what I can remember. I remember that at some point I organized some art books. I looked through photography. I shelved some African-American Studies. And then I had a lot of down time. I read some, mostly from this book about a supernatural detective. I listened to NPR a little. I learned that in the original book of Pinnocchio, Jiminy Cricket got squashed on page 9. At about 3, Ward let me go. Life is good.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

All of the sudden we have so many used Charles Bukowski books! We can't even fit them all in one picture! We're talking about like 35 books, outta nowhere!

Hollywood!Love is a Dog from Hell!Pulp!Screams from the Balcony!Septuagenarian Stew!Women!selected letters!etc! etc!

As always, we have select new editions of Bukowksi for sale as well. So come on by Chop Suey and check out both our New Books and our Beats section! (Hurry, before word of this windfall reaches the folks at New York Deli!)

Thursday, March 5, 2009

On his second to last day as an intern at Chop Suey Tuey, Nathan has these reflections:

Hey everybody! It's Nathan again, and I just realized that I forgot to tell you about what happened to me in Coppola's on Tuesday. I had just had a sailor sandwich, and I went down the steps to go to the bathroom. I closed the door to the tiny room behind me, and I figured I should lock it, just in case. A minute later, I turned around to open the door, and it wouldn't open. "Oh right," I said to myself, "the door's still locked." So I tried to unlock it, but the little thing on the doorknob wouldn't turn. I realized the severity of my situation. I called Chop Suey. Andrew picked up. "Hey, it's Nathan," I said. "I'm probably going to be late getting back to work." "Why's that?" he asked. "Because I'm locked in the bathroom at Coppola's."He laughed at that. I probably stayed in the bathroom for about two more minutes before a guy with a key got me out.

Things are going really slow today. I've hardly had anything to do. I organized a bunch of books on art and photography, and shelved some African American Studies, but honestly I've mostly just been sitting around. There was this ten minute period where I watched a Triumph the Insult Comic Dog bit with Ward on Youtube. It was the one where he heckles all the guys at the Star Wars. It was pretty funny, even though I'd seen it before. All in all, I like this job. It's definitely laid-back, and I feel like I'm part of something important. That's all I can really ask for in a job.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Nathan is a student at Trinity Episcopal School, and as part of his junior year he is required to work 30 hours at a business to gain a larger work/world experience. For some reason, he picked Chop Suey Books! While we do have access to the world wide internet, I'm not sure how much experience he'll pick up here. We'll see. For the next few days, we'll let Nathan tell us in his own words what working at Chop Suey Books has taught him:

Day 1: Ward started me organizing the upstairs. He told me not to work too fast. So I started straightening books, filling in the negative spaces on the shelves, etc. I've decided that Muddy Waters is probably the best old-school blues man I know. I've learned 2 things so far from organizing books.A: Bruce Lee actually wrote books on karate. Pretty sweet!B: Isaac Asimov wrote a LOT of books about robots.Things are pretty laid-back so far. I'm glad I chose this job.